Monday, December 15, 2008

Just to put the Madoff Ponzi scheme US$50 Bn (£33 Bn) losses into perspective - Tesco owns 1,779 stores in the UK, and employs over 270,000 staff worldwide. Overseas stores account for 20% of group profits and their Market Capitalization today is £25,794m - leaving you with enough over to buy Sainsbury's - £5,307m or Wm. Morrison's - £7,074.

Amschel Mayor James Rothschild was the great-great-great-grandson of N.M. Rothschild and only son of the second family of Victor, third Baron Rothschild, the scientist and head of Sir Edward Heath's Think Tank.

Strangely when the fabulously wealthy banker, married to a Guiness heiress, Amschel Rothschild, 41, is found strangled with the heavy cord of his own towel robe in his hotel room in Paris the French Prime Minister, Jacques Chirac ordered the French Police to close their investigation, and, Rupert Murdoch, instructed his editors and news managers around the world to report it as a heart attack, if they need to report it at all.

He was found hanging by a chambermaid and it was said to be suicide(NYT - http://tinyurl.com/5a8vva) relatives of the 41-year-old Mr. Rothschild refused to give any details of his death, which was originally reported as having resulted from a heart attack.

Google any combination of his name etc., and Google yields virtually nothing.

Bouncing or Floating Czech I am never sure - but there are tales of recent sighting of the bulky swindler - althouhg some prefer that like a fellow sailor , Popeye he finally got to Mount Olive.

Incidentally Archbishop Marcinkus (AKA The Pope's Gorilla - who surprisingly came from, Cicero , Illinois one of Chicago's toughest boro's) who somehow was involved with Mr Calvi the bungee jumping banker died in his sleep and in his bed February 20th 2006 aged 84 in Sun City AZ .

Somehow the Holy see managed to be short US274 MN. (when US$274 Mn. WAS US$274 Mn) ...there was also an unresolved U$1.4 billion in “questionable” loans to three of Calvi's, .Banco Ambrosiano’s Latin American subsidiaries.

A murder inquiry was held in December 2002 after a further examination of Calvi’s remains which, Italian prosecutors said, showed he had not committed suicide but had been killed. In October 2005 , 4 alleged Mafiosi, three men and a woman, were charged with his murder and went on trial. Marcinkus was not called as a witness.

In February 2006 a Mafia pentito (Gubment witness) , Francesco Mannoia, (AKA mozarella) told the court by video link from the US that Calvi had been murdered on the orders of Mafia bosses - the reason ? He had lost the Cosa Nostra's criminal proceeds when the Banco Ambrosiano collapsed.

He also he gave evidence against former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (for which he was paid US$600,000) and he also claims he helped steal Carravaggio's Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence which, since he stole it in 1969 from the San Lorenzo oratory, Palermo , has never been.

He now lives under a US Witness Protection Plan @ 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue,Chicago,IL 60615 2806.